Serve the People (2022)

Heartbreaking and Beautiful

A film about heartbreak and loss . Serve the People, gets to the heart of relationships we can't see through. The couple is in love, but society and Communism take away any hope of a lasting relationship. Soo-ryeon is in a marriage of convenience, and leaving would likely lead to debt or death. Mu-gwang is a poor man who has never known the depths of respect until Soo-ryeon. He too is tied down by society's expectations. Their intense relationship is very short lived,. It is heartbreaking knowing the couple can never be together again and must endure their circumstances in order to survive in a harsh society. They both move forward, but there is forever a longing in their hearts and a question of "what if?" In the end, Mu-gwang seeks out Soo-ryeon, but she will not face him. Overcoming longing again would only cause more pain. If you can't relate to this drama, then you might one day. There is nothing like love lost and forever longing, and this film paints it beautifully.

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Quite average, could be shorter

This movie has a duration of 147 minutes, which is nearly 2.5 hours. I feel like it would be better if it was shorter. It focuses mostly only on two people and their relationship with a few other characters and very few location changes and occasional flashbacks. The plot moves forward well, but still it is easy to lose focus (at least for me) so I watched it divided into three parts during one day.

The premise and North Korean setting during the 1970's is interesting as well as the "Serve the people" title, which is also an ongoing theme in the movie and it plays an important role, both in the setting and in the character's relationship too. Speaking of their relationship, I'm honestly still confused about it, it started off as a purely sexual one but we also got a handful of scenes that could easily be interpreted as romantic. Maybe it was intentional: to show that it wasn't just black and white and how if the circumstances were different, their relationship would still progress like that.

The characters didn't really stand out for me but I want to praise the lead actors, they did a really great job both in the normal scenes (one emotional scene with lots of shouting was so well done) and the sexual ones. There were A LOT of the latter but they played an important role in the movie.

Overall, I give the rating 7.5/10.

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